Assessing the applicability of impact speed injury risk curves based on US data to defining safe speeds in the US and Sweden.

Vision Zero is an approach to road safety that aims to eliminate all traffic-induced fatalities and lifelong injuries. To reach this goal, a multi-faceted safe system approach must be implemented to anticipate and minimize the risk associated with human mistakes. One aspect of a safe system is choosing speed limits that keep occupants within human biomechanical limits in a crash scenario.

Finding and understanding pedal misapplication crashes using a deep learning natural language model.

Objective: The objective of this study was to develop a system which used the BERT natural language understanding model to identify pedal misapplication (PM) crashes from their crash narratives and validate the accuracy of the system.

Methods: The training dataset used for this study was 11 cases from the NMVCCS study and 952 cases from the North Carolina state crash database. Cases for this study were selected from their respective full datasets using a keyword search algorithm containing terms indicative of a pedal-related mistake.

Injury patterns within clusters of seriously injured occupants comparing real-world crashes in the United States and the European Union.

Objective: Crashworthiness assessments in the United States (U.S.) and the European Union (EU) include a large number of safety regulations and consumer testing programs.

Cluster analysis of seriously injured occupants in motor vehicle crashes.

Permanent monitoring of real-world crashes is important to identify injury patterns and injury mechanisms that still occur in the field despite existing regulations and consumer testing programs. This study investigates current injury patterns at the MAIS 3+ level in the accident environment without limiting the impact direction. The approach consisted of applying unsupervised clustering algorithms to NASS-CDS crash data in order to classify seriously injured, belted occupants into clusters based on injured body regions, biomechanical characteristics and crash severity.

Considering real-world sightline obstructions in crash and injury prevention estimates for left turn across path/opposite direction intersection active safety systems.

Objective: Previous analyses of active safety systems in left turn across path/opposite direction (LTAP/OD) crashes have shown that sensor sightline obstructions might affect the performance of these systems. National retrospective crash databases provide little information about the proportion of cases which have sightline obstructions. One promising alternative are naturalistic driving studies (NDS).

Expansion of NASS/CDS for characterizing run-off-road crashes.

Objective: Run-off-road (ROR) crashes account for one-third of all annual crash fatalities in the US. The National Automotive Sampling System Crashworthiness Data System (NASS/CDS) is a dataset which may be used to understand the nature of ROR crashes. Despite the wealth of coded data available in NASS/CDS, this dataset lacks coded information about the roadside environment and the off-road trajectory of the vehicle.

Estimating near side crash injury risk in best performing passenger vehicles in the United States.

The objective of this paper was to develop an injury risk model relating real world injury outcomes in near-side crashes with U.S. New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) test performance, crash, and occupant properties.

Crash and injury prevention estimates for intersection driver assistance systems in left turn across path/opposite direction crashes in the United States.

The objective of this research study was to estimate the number of left turn across path/opposite direction (LTAP/OD) crashes and injuries that could be prevented in the United States if vehicles were equipped with an intersection advanced driver assistance system (I-ADAS). This study reconstructed 501 vehicle-to-vehicle LTAP/OD crashes in the United States that were investigated in the NHTSA National Motor Vehicle Crash Causation Survey (NMVCCS). The performance of 30 different I-ADAS system variations was evaluated for each crash.

Residual road departure crashes after full deployment of LDW and LDP systems.

Road departures are one of the most severe crash modes in the United States. To help reduce this risk, vehicles are being introduced in the United States with lane departure warning (LDW) systems, which warn the driver of a departure, and lane departure prevention (LDP) systems, which assist the driver in steering back to the roadway. Previous studies have estimated that LDW/LDP systems may prevent one third of drift-out-of-lane road departure crashes.

Evaluation of alternative intersection treatments at rural crossroads using simulation software.

Objective: Rural roads are characterized by hazardous roadsides and suboptimal geometry yet allow for high travel speeds and unfavorable impact angles. In Victoria, 25% of persons seriously injured and 52% of fatalities occur on rural roads, with 30% occurring at intersections. In the United States, almost twice the number of traffic fatalities occur in rural areas than in urban areas, while accounting for less than half of all vehicle miles traveled and 21% of the population.

Non-Invasive Detection of Respiration and Heart Rate with a Vehicle Seat Sensor.

This study demonstrates the feasibility of using a seat sensor designed for occupant classification from a production passenger vehicle to measure an occupant’s respiration rate (RR) and heart rate (HR) in a laboratory setting. Relaying occupant vital signs after a crash could improve emergency response by adding a direct measure of the occupant state to an Advanced Automatic Collision Notification (AACN) system. Data was collected from eleven participants with body weights ranging from 42 to 91 kg using a Ford Mustang passenger seat and seat sensor.

Geochemical wolframite fingerprinting - the likelihood ratio approach for laser ablation ICP-MS data.

Wolframite has been specified as a 'conflict mineral' by a U.S. Government Act, which obliges companies that use these minerals to report their origin.

Analytical Fingerprint of Wolframite Ore Concentrates.

Ongoing violent conflicts in Central Africa are fueled by illegal mining and trading of tantalum, tin, and tungsten ores. The credibility of document-based traceability systems can be improved by an analytical fingerprint applied as an independent method to confirm or doubt the documented origin of ore minerals. Wolframite (Fe,Mn)WO is the most important ore mineral for tungsten and is subject to artisanal mining in Central Africa.

Prey diversity as a driver of resource partitioning between river-dwelling fish species.

Although food resource partitioning among sympatric species has often been explored in riverine systems, the potential influence of prey diversity on resource partitioning is little known. Using empirical data, we modeled food resource partitioning (assessed as dietary overlap) of coexisting juvenile Atlantic salmon () and alpine bullhead (). Explanatory variables incorporated into the model were fish abundance, benthic prey diversity and abundance, and several dietary metrics to give a total of seventeen potential explanatory variables.

Injury mitigation estimates for an intersection driver assistance system in straight crossing path crashes in the United States.

Objective: Accounting for one fifth of all crashes and one sixth of all fatal crashes in the United States, intersection crashes are among the most frequent and fatal crash modes. Intersection advanced driver assistance systems (I-ADAS) are emerging vehicle-based active safety systems that aim to help drivers safely navigate intersections. The objective of this study was to estimate the number of crashes and number of vehicles with a seriously injured driver (Maximum Abbreviated Injury Scale [MAIS] 3+) that could be prevented or reduced if, for every straight crossing path (SCP) intersection crash, one of the vehicles had been equipped with an I-ADAS.

Predicting crash-relevant violations at stop sign-controlled intersections for the development of an intersection driver assistance system.

Objective: Intersection crashes resulted in over 5,000 fatalities in the United States in 2014. Intersection Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (I-ADAS) are active safety systems that seek to help drivers safely traverse intersections. I-ADAS uses onboard sensors to detect oncoming vehicles and, in the event of an imminent crash, can either alert the driver or take autonomous evasive action.

From autochthonous to allochthonous resources: seasonal shifts in food use by stream-dwelling YOY Arctic charr Salvelinus alpinus through the ice-free season.

Substantial seasonal changes in resource use associated with enhanced water-column use were revealed in stream-living YOY Arctic charr Salvelinus alpinus during the ice-free season. In July, YOY individuals showed a diet dominated by aquatic invertebrates (mainly Chironomidae larvae), but despite the small size of the fish, the abundance of terrestrial insects in their diet increased markedly from July to September (from 1·9 to 62·8%). Similarly, the frequency of surface drifting foragers, i.

Analysis of Driver Evasive Maneuvering Prior to Intersection Crashes Using Event Data Recorders.

Objective: Intersection crashes account for over 4,500 fatalities in the United States each year. Intersection Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (I-ADAS) are emerging vehicle-based active safety systems that have the potential to help drivers safely navigate across intersections and prevent intersection crashes and injuries. The performance of an I-ADAS is expected to be highly dependent upon driver evasive maneuvering prior to an intersection crash.

Driver Behavior During Overtaking Maneuvers from the 100-Car Naturalistic Driving Study.

Objective: Lane changes with the intention to overtake the vehicle in front are especially challenging scenarios for forward collision warning (FCW) designs. These overtaking maneuvers can occur at high relative vehicle speeds and often involve no brake and/or turn signal application. Therefore, overtaking presents the potential of erroneously triggering the FCW.

Evaluation of Vehicle-Based Crash Severity Metrics.

Objective: Vehicle change in velocity (delta-v) is a widely used crash severity metric used to estimate occupant injury risk. Despite its widespread use, delta-v has several limitations. Of most concern, delta-v is a vehicle-based metric which does not consider the crash pulse or the performance of occupant restraints, e.

Comparison of Expected Crash and Injury Reduction from Production Forward Collision and Lane Departure Warning Systems.

Objectives: The U.S. New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) now tests for forward collision warning (FCW) and lane departure warning (LDW).

Injury Outcome in Crashes with Guardrail End Terminals.

Objective: The goal of this study is to evaluate the crash performance of guardrail end terminals in real-world crashes. Guardrail end terminals are installed at the ends of guardrail systems to prevent the rail from spearing through the car in an end-on collision. Recently, there has been a great deal of controversy as to the safety of certain widely used end terminal designs, partly because there is surprisingly little real-world crash data for end terminals.

Population distributions of time to collision at brake application during car following from naturalistic driving data.

Problem: Forward collision warning (FCW) systems are designed to mitigate the effects of rear-end collisions. Driver acceptance of these systems is crucial to their success, as perceived "nuisance" alarms may cause drivers to disable the systems. In order to make customizable FCW thresholds, system designers need to quantify the variation in braking behavior in the driving population.